What you actually need to know about Cressida Bonas

Ever since the furore started last week over the possibility of Prince Harry becoming engaged to girlfriend Cressida Bonas, the gossip outlets have been running overtime with their fact files on the Prince’s girlfriend and what they think you need to know about ‘Cressy’ – we think there are more important facts you need to know, therefore…

Here’s our list of the top things you need to know about Cressida Bonas.

Family and Background

Cressida Bonas was born on 18th February 1989 to Jeffrey Bonas and Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon. Miss Bonas, 24, is descended from King Charles II and is the granddaughter of the 6th Earl Howe. According to our calculations, she is Prince Harry’s 9th cousin through King Charles II.

Cressida’s parents, Jeffrey and Lady Mary-Gaye, married in 1984 and divorced in 1994 and through her mother’s multiple marriages, she has one half-brother and 3 half-sisters, though no ‘full’ brothers or sisters.

She attended the University of Leeds until 2011 and went on to study at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, which she left in July of this year. Prior to this, she studied at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire, coincidentally also where Chelsy Davy (former girlfriend of Prince Harry) studied.

Royal Relation and Media Mistake

Cressida Bonas is very good friends with Princess Eugenie of York, the two are frequently seen out and about together whilst the Princess is in London and it is believed that Prince Harry was introduced to Cressida through cousin Princess Eugenie.

Despite what was and remains to be quite widely attributed to Cressida, she has never been a Burberry model – that is according to Burberry themselves. The mismatch is said to have come from the misidentification of Cressida and English fashion model and actress, Cara Delevingne – both being of a similar age and appearance.

By all accounts, Cressida would fit in rather well with the Royal Family. She already has a firm connection through Princess Eugenie and her upbringing should contribute to an understanding and respect for Monarchy and tradition.

‘It’s all in a name’

A common question about Cressida is how you say her name. Whilst this may seem obvious to many, pronouncing names is a precarious business – however when you break it down, Cressida’s isn’t too hard.

She is commonly known to her friends as Cressy and has a variety of other nicknames which can be chosen from.

If she married into the Royal Family, she would lose her surname.

Career

Having recently finished University and college, Cressida will no doubt be looking at her options to see what she can do for a career. She’s already looking towards a career in acting and has made some appearances at small shows as a dancer, she was photographed and recorded dancing in her final year show whilst at Trinity Laban.

Marrying a Prince wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of your career, though as her relationship with Prince Harry grows closer, Cressida will find certain parts of her chosen career could be affected by her relationship – though this might not always be a bad thing!

There’s always the option of becoming a full-time royal, though with Prince Harry remaining a serving Officer in the Army Air Corps, it is unlikely he’d encourage any wife of his to give up her chosen career to pursue royal engagements.

Into the Future

If Prince Harry was to marry Cressida Bonas, it would almost certainly be a public wedding (quite possibly the last for The Queen’s grandchildren as Princess Beatrice, Eugenie and the Earl of Wessex’s children are unlikely to be afforded a public wedding) similar perhaps in style to the Duke of Cambridge’s in 2011.

Cressida would, according to UK custom, immediately become Princess Henry of Wales and Prince Harry would almost certainly be given a Royal Dukedom. Some have said the Dukedom of Sussex has been reserved for the Prince – meaning Cressida would become ‘HRH The Duchess of Sussex’.

However, all this talk of marriage is ‘early days’ and largely speculative – it might be many years away before the Prince becomes engaged yet – after all, it took Prince William almost a decade to wed the now Duchess of Cambridge!

Please tell me she has a middle name that will sound slightly less Monty Python-ish when coupled with the title “Duchess”.

Bella

Realistically, we don’t need to know anything about her. I still feel sorry that Prince William and Prince Henry have to put up with the constant media attention. And the Duchess of Cambridge has had to put up with it ever since she started dating Prince William. I can understand why the British royal family don’t like the British press. Just because the Cambridge’s aren’t out in public promoting their charities every single day, doesn’t mean they aren’t doing things that normally happen behind closed doors.

Roy Stockdill

What precisely is the difference between royals and the rest of us? Do tell! They go to the toilet, just like us, and they p**s and they s**t, just like us, they have the same bodily parts and the same bodily functions, so what exactly makes them so different? What extraordinarily stupid, ignorant, pathetic, sycophantic, obsequious, gullible little people you royalists are. As I have said, if they don’t like the media attention that their enormously privileged lifestyle attracts, then all they have to do is renounce it and give back the money they have stolen from us. Then we will leave them alone!

Like · 5 minutes ago

Zebulon

Does Pale Face get any cash with the Duchy of Sussex or does it just come with another brass star he can wear on his costume? If I were him I’d be mad as hell if he didn’t get a pay-out duchy after Will cashed-in with the Cambridge thing.

Royal Central

Sussex is a Dukedom (just a title), it has no Duchy with it (no land or estates). I’m not sure what you mean by the last comment, but it sounds malicious, so I’ll ignore it.

Roy Stockdill

If the younger royals don’t like the attention they get from the media, then there is a very simple solution that they could adopt. They could renounce their titles, stop swanning around the world on exotic holidays at our expense and announce that they are going to become ordinary people, live in an ordinary house and get a proper job! The press would rapidly lose interest then. They are parasites existing on the public purse and should have been abolished decades ago. Stupid people who whinge and whine about so-called press intrusion should realise that if it were not for the press interest in them they would cease to exist! The fact is that Kate Middleton “applied for the job” of being Duchess of Cambridge, encourage and manipulated by her pushy, social-climbing mother, the former flying trolley dolly. If she wanted an ordinary life away from media attention, then she should have married a plumber or an accountant! Don’t tell me she doesn’t enjoy the life of enormous privilege and wealth she now has, and being photographed by the paparazzi is one of the occupational hazards she will have to put up with.

Amanda

Let’s be honest here. If the younger Royals (or older ones, for that matter) were to renounce their titles and live as private citizens, the press would NOT stop being interested & following them around. Zara Philips and her brother don’t have titles and live entirely off of the money they make from their respective careers – but they’re still photographed… and cameras still show up at big events in their lives (such as weddings and births) simply because they’re Princess Anne’s children and the Queen’s grandchildren. Their ‘celebrity status’ is still there… they just aren’t at as many official Royal engagements. On another note, your assertion that Kate was ‘manipulated by her pushy, social-climbing mother’ is completely unfounded. I’ve seen a few people online who seem to believe that Kate and her mother somehow hoodwinked Prince William and conned him into marrying her. That is both baseless and ludicrous. It’s an idea born out of disdain for the institution and the Royal family themselves, but there isn’t a single piece of actual evidence to back it up. There’s nothing wrong with disliking the monarchy and believing that another form of government is better and more efficient – but stop letting that dislike cloud your better judgement.

Roy Stockdill

Have you ever looked at the awful, vulgar load of tat and crap that is sold by Kate’s parents and sister on their Party Pieces website or whatever it’s called? If that isn’t a classic example of social-climbing and cashing in on a royal connection I don’t know what is! On the wider issue, William and Kate seem to have had a great time in the Maldives at the taxpayers’ expense, leaving their new-born baby at home in the charge of a nanny. What other couple would have done that? The plain and simple fact is that these people ponce off the rest of us and enjoy an enormously privileged lifestyle at a time when the rest of the nation are being asked to tighten their belts and accept a reduced quality of life. They are parasites, pure and simple, and those who appear to worship and revere them are sad, sycophantic, obsequious, gullible little people.

Amanda

I just had a look at the website for the first time. I see nothing awful or vulgar about selling paper plates, cups, and other party favours in various themes. It isn’t like this is the first shop of its kind. Speaking of themes, they have absolutely nothing ‘Royal’ related on their website. The closest they have are princess themes – and those are for children’s events. Don’t tell me that nobody sold princess themed party supplies for little girls before the Middletons showed up. The one article I’ve found accusing them of cashing in on their connections claims it’s because they’re selling Australian flag themed party supplies – and Will & Kate are going to Australia and NZ on tour next month. Given the fact, though, that Australia is not the only country they have party supply themes for (they have a USA theme, for example), this conclusion takes some imagination to get to. As far as the holiday goes, Prince George is nearly 9 months old. To call him a ‘new-born’ is disingenuous. These two have pretty much locked themselves up inside with their baby since his birth (minus a few public engagements and holidays), to the point that they’ve been criticized by some for keeping George – and themselves – too hidden away. Their breaking of Royal protocol has been noted by both Royalists and Republicans numerous times, starting from the day they got married. They’ve been praised (and ridiculed) for not hiring a full time nanny right after the birth and instead, opting to be the primary caregivers to George, with Kate’s mother and a part-time nanny helping out. Now that they have their first official tour since his birth on the horizon, I don’t think it’s hard to understand why they would hire one now. As for going on holiday without him, do you really think they’re the only couple to ever go away together and have someone watch their baby? Honestly, you couldn’t be more wrong. This isn’t an unusual thing to do by any means. It would be unusual if they did it regularly, but considering this is the first time they’ve gone away – just the two of them – since his birth, I don’t feel that’s an accurate criticism to make. At the end of the day, you just don’t like them. Full stop. Everything they do will never be good enough or right to you. You would find fault with them no matter what – and that’s fine, but at least admit it. I’m not sad, sycophantic, obsequious or gullible. I simply have different interests and opinions than you do. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.